Teaching Zeitgeist

German has two verbs that sound exactly the same when you use them in different ways. Today I had to explain that difference to my class.

Let us suppose we want to say “Helmut eats a cake.” That would be “Helmut isst einen Kuchen.” When used in the first-person singular form the verb “to eat” – isst – sounds exactly like the first-person singular verb “is” – ist. That one little “s” can make all the difference in the world. Therefore…